Rare Candy
by violetarcher
Summary: A collection of short, stand-alone pieces that don't belong to a larger series. Stories will focus mostly on Hakuno and Gilgamesh, but other characters and pairings in the Fateverse may appear. Ratings will vary and some stories may feature explicit content. Triumvirate: She didn't realize that meeting him again would hurt so much. Hakuno, her lost Berserker and a lot of questions.
1. Chapter 1

AN: For people not familiar with CCC, a few things to help this story make sense: in CCC, BB demotes Kotomine from his EXTRA post as Grail War Administrator to humble shopkeep instead. Female Hakuno really likes candy and if you have Gilgamesh as your Servant once you're about halfway through the game he'll start giving her candy after battle if he thinks you've performed well. Gil haet mapo tofu, to the point that he tells Hakuno that if she develops a taste for it, he will immediately break his contract with her.

Also, for readers who've only seen Gilgamesh and Kotomine interact in FSN/Zero, I should mention that CCC Gilgamesh very obviously dislikes and distrusts Kotomine: he considers Kotomine to be a creepy, sinister asshole and constantly warns Hakuno away from him during the game. Since CCC Gil is supposed to be nearly identical, personality-wise, to Uruk Gilgamesh, the Kotomine of Zero apparently got really lucky that Tokiomi summoned a cranky genocidal Gilgamesh incarnation instead of one closer to the original, because CCC Gilgamesh makes it clear that he'd happily carve the fake priest up like a Thanksgiving turkey given the slightest excuse. He's about to get one.

**Rare Candy**

"Mongrel. How often have I told you not to linger in the shadow of that fake priest? I grow weary of this. Come away at once."

"Just give me one more minute Gil, okay? I'm tired too, but we need to resupply and I'd like to look over all this new stock." Father Kotomine has already rung up several potions, elixirs and a new pair of stockings but the display case is stuffed with things she's never seen before and Hakuno's curiosity is getting the better of her. _This wasn't all here when we entered the Labyrinth an hour ago. Wonder where it all came from?_

Something gleams underneath the usual bottles and cans of healing items. Bending, Hakuno sees a large purple bag tied with gold ribbon on one of the lower shelves of the kiosk. She taps the glass with her finger. "What's that? I don't think I've ever seen it before."

"Ah. You have discerning eyes, girl. That bag contains a new and most unique kind of candy. In fact, there is like it in the world." The priest turns to look directly at Gilgamesh and his strange, serene smile pulls the corners of his mouth a little deeper. "I daresay even the exalted King of Heroes cannot boast of owning anything like it, such is its rarity."

Gilgamesh snorts, very quietly.

Her heart skips a beat. "Candy?" _New candy? Candy that even Gil doesn't have? Wow._ Saliva floods her mouth: she swallows hard and coughs discreetly to cover it. "How much is it?" Her voice is calm, perfectly casual, not over-eager at all.

_Clank, clank, clank_. Gilgamesh is coming closer. She pretends not to notice, and continues looking up at Kotomine with an expression of mild, innocent interest as he lifts the bag onto the counter. _I'm not leaving until I get some of this candy, so deal with it._

"For this candy, I am asking only ten million Sakurament."

"W-_what_?"

The priest smiles at her sputtering face. "You object? I feel it is a very fair price, considering this candy's rarity." He opens the bag and withdraws a reddish piece of candy the size of her thumb, holding it before her like a precious jewel. "However, since you are such a devoted customer, I am prepared to offer you a stunning, one-time deal. One piece for twenty thousand Sakurament. Consider it quickly. I will not make this offer again."

_Twenty thousand Sakurament for a single piece…_But there's really nothing to debate when she's surrounded by such a heavenly fume of chocolate and her fingers are already counting up her remaining Sakurament. "If it's that rare, just this once I guess it's okay—"

"If it is truly a rarity, then the proper place of that candy is with the king."

Golden light floods the kiosk as Gilgamesh looms over her, holding out a wallet the size of her head. With a sneer, he drops it in front of Kotomine. "Such things are not meant for peasants, after all. Ten million Sakurament. The candy, fake priest, and be quick about it."

"Gilgamesh!" she snarls before she can stop herself. "How could…at least give me one piece! I'll even pay you for it if you want, but damn it, for once let me have something!"

The king is already opening the bag. "Don't grumble so, mongrel. Should this not be to my liking, I will grant you the reminder and you may stuff yourself with it as you please. But in the case of a rare commodity, the king must always be the first to acquire it." Gilgamesh pops a piece in his mouth: she can see him rolling it from cheek to cheek, testing, then a golden eyebrow lifts slightly and he begins to chew.

Hakuno looks away, her face burning, and takes a few deep breathes, clenching and un-clenching her hands. She's hot, tired and cranky and now Gil's stealing her candy. "I don't know why I expected anything better from the King of Greed," she mutters, fighting for calmness and turns back to Kotomine. "Is there any chance that you'll be getting more of this in stock?"

The priest shrugs and spreads his hands as if to say _only if God wills it_. "Perhaps. You have reached a time of great battle, when my items are of even greater importance than before, and this candy was quite time-consuming for me to make—"

Gilgamesh stops chewing.

"I found myself leaving my other duties sadly derelict during the process." Kotomine smiles humbly, but there is an unpleasant gleam in his eyes. "But, if I am called to produce more of it by a higher power I will certainly abide."

"Y-you…you damned fake priest—"

The bag falls to the floor with a soft thump, candy exploding out of it as Gilgamesh doubles over, clutching his throat.

Fear sends a sword straight through her heart. "Gil! What's the matter? What's happening?" The king's face is an alarming dark red, nearly the same color as the candy, his breathing shallow and hoarse. Hakuno wraps an arm around his back, trying to hold him upright, but it's no good, that golden armor is too damn heavy and they both tumble to the ground.

"Kotomine! What the hell is in this stuff?" If anything happens to Gilgamesh she's going to take Ea and run the priest through with it until he's like lotus root, she doesn't care how, she _will_ make it happen. "Gil, just breathe slowly, relax." She's pretty sure the short gasping sounds coming from the king are actually curses, which makes her feel a little better, but he's never been like this before, flushed and feverish, his bones like jelly, unable to even raise his head. Sweat pours off his face; she wipes it carefully away with her sleeve and he glares at her. Another good sign.

The priest watches them with calm eyes. "Simply chocolate with an experimental spice blend that I tinkered with over the years. It is not anything unusual—in fact, it is much like the spices used in mapo tofu—"

Gilgamesh chokes.

"It seems," Kotomine continues softly, "that the King of Heroes is quite intolerant to spicy food. A pity that his devotion to collecting rare objects has made him so incautious. Or," the priest says, even more quietly, "was it instead devotion to your master that spurred your hand—"

A trembling golden fingers wavers in the air, then points straight at Father Kotomine. There is a sudden bloom of light, a tremendous crash, an even larger cloud of dust and when Hakuno finishes coughing both her lungs clear of the debris, Kotomine and his kiosk are gone. An enormous golden statue of an archer, her bow pointed straight at the heavens, has taken their place, gleaming brilliantly amid the rubble.

"So perish all the king's enemies," Gilgamesh croaks and drops his hand. "Mongrel, take me back to our room. Now."

oooooo

"Mongrel," Gilgamesh whimpers for the millionth time tonight, "more iced wine."

She wants to say something, oh how dearly she wants to say something, but her teeth are chattering too hard for speech. She pulls over another icy cask of the wine with a grimace, pours it into a crystal goblet of incredible thinness and beauty. The goblet in one hand, she uses the other to lift the king's head high enough off her lap so he can sip. He drinks so long that her hand begins to ache.

"Hakuno," Gil says when he finishes and is once again lying in comfort on her lap, "the ice packs need replenishing as well."

Silently, she fetches more ice from the hundred barrels that have been crammed into her room, refills the pack across the king's forehead, the ones stacked five deep against his naked body and lastly (while pointedly looking at the ceiling) the one she had hastily thrown across his crotch when he had burst out of his armor as if it was red-hot.

Gilgamesh nods limply once she finishes. "I should now be comfortable for at least another hour. Ah, in situations grave as this, the only sure remedy is wine and the comfort of a woman's thighs—well, since you are the nearest thing to a woman available, I suppose I must make do as best I can." He stretches and wriggles slightly onto his side, his golden head heavy on her aching legs. "Mongrel, why do you scowl so? You should be grateful to the point of tears that I have taken this cruel attack for you. If I, with my superior body, could be brought so low, you would have been but a smoking puddle on the ground had you partaken of that cursed sweet." He wriggles a little more. "And to be once again graced with the sight of my splendid form, and the gift of my head upon your lowly thighs…truly, mongrel you are blessed beyond your worth!"

"Yes. I'm such a lucky girl, aren't I. Thank you ever so much," Hakuno grinds out. "Don't worry. Be assured, oh mighty King, that I won't ever forget this. Ever."


	2. Triumvirate

**Triumvirate**

She didn't realize that meeting him again would hurt so much.

oooooo

A long-awaited dream fulfilled, a culmination, the work of long years spent learning, growing, gathering, changing, making, hoping. Records from the Moon Cell, crafted bodies, mana from an untainted Grail. She'd spent hours tinkering, struggling, mixing, sculpting. Mana and data to shape the shell, mud from the fields of Uruk, Enki and Aruru come again in her fingers and Gilgamesh watching her every attempt with guarded eyes.

"Never mind," he would say after another prototype failed. He took her in his arms, kissed her, led her off to bed. "It will come in time; my friend's form does present certain difficulties, after all. Did you not create our splendid new bodies after such trials? Are you not my consort? If there be any who could accomplish this, it is you. Never let it be said that a human cannot match the gods."

Then one day she thought _mouse_ and the mud shifted under her fingers, grew whiskers and a tail, squeaked and the blood beat hard in her temples. _Blade_, she thought and a knife sprang forth, cutting the tip of her index finger.

Behind her, Gilgamesh took a deep, harsh breath, then whispered "_Chain_," plunged a hand into the mud and the Chain of Heaven filled the room, light glinting off its golden links.

oooooo

It's cold up on the roof now that the sun is setting, but she doesn't really care. Hakuno wraps her arms more tightly around her legs and continues to watch the empty plains to the east. If she leans out and cranes her head she can probably see the hole left in the temple wall where they had burst from the summoning chamber, the ground scarred and gouged from the joy of their reunion.

The land had shaken with ecstasy, sent her tumbling to her knees and in the minute it had taken to struggle to her feet they were gone.

Her eyes burn, so she looks at the sky. Blue streaked with rose, thin clouds stretched like lace over the stars. The light deepens and drops away as she watches for them and still they do not come. A dot—a large bird?—rises in the east, riding the wind towards her, the same wind that's blowing sand against her legs and dust into her eyes.

_I thought...that he..._but she snaps the budding sentence off before it can blossom into what she does not want to hear. Her chest feels tight and narrow so she lifts her shoulders and shakes her arms, twisting back and forth to try and find relief. The ache persists so she gets up and walks back and forth, hugging herself. The wind is cool and growing colder by the minute, so she should probably stop straining her eyes and go inside to warm herself.

_After all_, she thinks, _they still need me to support him, don't they_, and dry bitterness flows over her tongue.

oooooo

The first shock had been when she had completed the summoning, standing there dazed and drained but proud, seeing the unfamiliar form take shape, shrouded in light. "What an unconventional summoning," said a voice from the light, pure and sweet but with power underlying it like riverbed rock. "Are you my Master?"

Hakuno had stood there, blinking and then it had hit her: _he doesn't know me_.

Then Gilgamesh had pushed past her, face alight with a joy more radiant than the first dawn and whispered, "My friend, it is you," centuries of longing and sorrow sunken into five short words. "_It is you_!"

She took in the king's joy and the second shock came, cutting her to the bone: _Enkidu was with him for two years, I've been with him for seventy but I will never bring Gilgamesh happiness like that. He won't ever long for me like that, even if I'm with him for a thousand years or more_, she thought and despair swallowed her quietly as the king sprang at Enkidu, who laughed and darted out of the way as quickly as a hummingbird. Then the wall collapsed, knocking her to the floor and they were gone, drunk with the bliss of their reunion, battling their way across the plain as she sat forgotten in the rubble of their joy.

oooooo

It wasn't just for Gilgamesh's sake that she was doing this: it was for her own as well. Hence the records from the Moon Cell. An Enkidu summoned from the Throne of Heroes would not be the same Enkidu that was her half-remembered Berserker from her Holy Grail War. Her memory of him was smudged and faint but the thorn in her heart was lodged deep, and persisted. As much Gilgamesh disliked admitting it, Enkidu has had other ties-herself, Shamhat-and after nearly seventy years of dealing with Gilgamesh all alone, she was pretty sure that it would do them both good to see him again.

She still wanted to know why he left her.

As soon as Gilgamesh had said her former Servant was a Berserker, the images came—_fur, horn, honey, green, gold, fear, sweetness, loss_—but nothing more. Berserker was a blank shape, a hole in her mind and, slowly, a growing ache in her heart. She had asked Gilgamesh for more information, but he had refused, even though he had been the one to bring up the subject in the first place. "I am beginning to regret saying anything regarding that beast. Did I not make it clear? That dog abandoned you: what more needs be said? Think not of them. Mongrel, let it go and be satisfied. Do not waste your time brooding over such things, else I will judge it as a failure to properly appreciate my glory and take your head in recompense." But his eyes did not meet hers and his face wore the same expression she could remember from the time she had dreamed about his long-lost friend: a deep, long-held and thoroughly private pain. Hakuno had let the matter drop: there had been a Grail War to win and later, space to explore.

The half-seen images stuck, however, and dreams started, rare but precious. A hand that was not a hand in hers, a dog that was not a dog curled at her feet. Bone and feather, whirling before her, a shield of long matted hair, a single golden eye peering out from the thicket. The scent of fresh grass trampled underfoot, light on the water, light on the stones, the shepherds in the fields, the beasts running, a woman's breasts to cradle her head. Sometimes she would dream Gil's memories and know that someone walked at her side, someone unknown but very dear to her, someone who wrapped an arm around her waist and laughed with her at the funny parts.

Gilgamesh never wanted to hear about these dreams and urged her to forget with a vehemence that made her suspicious. She didn't want to forget, she had argued, because despite everything, she missed them. They must have been close, she had said over and over to him, otherwise why would I still have these bits of memories? These dreams? I'm missing so many memories already Gil, you can't blame me for wanting to bring some back. You said you looked at the records, you have to know who it was. Please, Gil, tell me.

"Why would I recall a nameless wild beast?" he had spat and disappeared for two days, presumably to teach her a lesson. Instead she had welcomed the quiet and used the time to think, and remember.

Rin's memories hadn't been any better but she had at least confirmed some of Hakuno's. "I don't think you ever learned their name," she had written in response to Hakuno's email, "but it's not like they could talk anyway. I can't remember their face, either. I'm not even sure they had a face. But what I do remember is, that as weird as they were, you two loved each other. I don't think I'd ever met a closer Master/Servant pair and—I'll admit it now—I was jealous as hell. I can't imagine why they would have abandoned you, but it had to be a good damn reason. Maybe BB realized they were too powerful and threw them out. You two used to go through opponents like butter.

There's one other thing I remember but don't you go thinking too hard about it: when Julius cut off the connection between you two and I had to reestablish it? Berserker kept making this sound, almost like they were calling you. Sha-something. Might have been Shamit or Sha-hit."

A picture came then: of her nearly in tears begging Berserker _to go with Rin, it's all right, if you don't you'll die, I'll be right here, I won't leave you, but you need to change_, Berserker's face pressed against her lower belly as she had tried to show them what she meant. Berserker looking up suddenly, the light of understanding flooding into their face. "Shamhat," Berserker had said, voice weak, but happy. "Shamhat. Shamhat."

Gilgamesh had returned a day later with sweets and treasures, obvious bribes, and found her waiting for him, wrapped in a patient cloud of anger.

"_Enkidu_."

A single word, but enough.

oooooo

She's nearly to the stairs when she hears talons scrape on stone behind her. Startled, she turns and sees an eagle, golden-brown feathers ruffled, perch on the edge of the ruined tower. It cocks its head and looks at her, then changes and she's back in the Moon Cell, watching Berserker flow between forms as they battle.

A narrow, graceful form draped in white, green hair to his knees, grass in the sun. A sweet face with tender eyes and a smile that knows her. Enkidu steps forward, holding his arms out to her and all she can do is stare at him, blinking back tears.

"I know this isn't the form you knew me in," he says gently. "But that isn't important. Your heart still remembers and Hakuno, I've missed you so, _Hakuno_."

The tears she has been struggling against pour down her cheeks as Enkidu wraps his thin strong arms around her and rocks her back and forth, murmuring to her like water. The body isn't the same, the face a stranger's glimpsed in snatches from Gil's memories but this scent, this feeling, the peace of growing things, grass underfoot, bright air, the sun gleaming off the gazelle's back. She buries her face in his neck and howls.

"Why? You left me! Why did you leave me? Is it something I did? You left me and I've spent the last seventy fucking years haunted by images of you and why, Berserker! Goddamnit, _you left me with Gilgamesh_!"

"I know," he says, still rocking her, stroking her hair. "Beloved, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

When her tears stop, they sit at the wall, Hakuno cradled in Enkidu's lap like a child or a bride. She has a vague memory of sitting this way with Berserker and warmth flows through her body, leaving her tired and content. _Huh_, _Gilgamesh still isn't back_, she thinks, with vague wonder.

"I know," Enkidu says as she feels the brush of his mind against hers, the Master/Servant bond she's almost forgotten thanks to Gilgamesh who even now keeps his mind locked prison-tight. "I told him we needed some time alone. He wasn't happy, but he acquiesced." He wraps his arms more tightly around her against the chill and quietly adds: "He missed you, you know."

"Mmm." Gilgamesh is something that she doesn't want to think too much about at the moment and Enkidu must be able to sense this, but he continues anyway. "We had gone quite far when he suddenly pulled away from me and said 'Where is Hakuno?' He thought, you see," he says, even more quietly, "that you would naturally follow us. I don't think either of us realized just how fast or far we'd gone. Forgive us, Hakuno."

_Maybe_, she thinks, but she knows in her heart that they weren't deliberately excluding her: it isn't their fault their joy has no room for her. It's her problem to deal with, not theirs, yet she can feel that Enkidu grieves for her. She winds a hank of his hair around her hand and looks up at his face, white against the night sky. "Why did you leave me?"

The Servant sighs and cups her cheek with his hand, stroking the ridge of her cheekbone with a gentle finger. "Because of Gilgamesh."

"What? How-"

"Please let me explain," he says and sighs again. "I knew he was there on the Far Side and I could feel the ripples of BB's plan in the air shortly before they happened: I am naturally attuned to whichever world I inhabit, whether it be Earth or the Moon Cell. If I had been sent with you to the Far Side, he would have sensed me, awakened, and it...would not have been pleasant. He would have greatly disrupted things. You would have been caught in the middle. My Berserker form is the me before Shamhat, before I chose humanity, before I chose to stand at the King's side. An animal, running wild on the plains, unable to communicate and with only hazy memories of my time as 'Enkidu'. In that form, I both am and am not his friend. Seeing me like that would have been incredibly painful for him and I could not allow him to endure it."

_So Gil can't suffer but I can?_ Hakuno feels a hot swirl of rage tighten her body. Enkidu must feel it too, he has to, but he says nothing, only hugs her harder.

"There was another reason," he continues, "one just as important. You see I knew that you, and you alone...are the only person besides myself that Gilgamesh would ever accept as a companion. Someone like you only comes along once every few thousand years. I could not pass up the opportunity."

The Second Secret Garden, the King's Solitude, the voice she now knows as Enkidu begging Gilgamesh to forget him and find another friend. Once again thrown to the wolves to soothe the King's pain. "He nearly killed me, you know. A lot. And even when he stopped wanting to kill me, he never stopped being a gigantic asshole."

Enkidu's voice is steady and patient. "Hakuno, it broke my heart to leave you behind. Do not think that a day didn't go by that I did not mourn over losing you," and she can feel the truth of it in his mind. "I had no choice but to make the best of a bad situation and try to make things work out as well as possible for the two people I loved. I-" and his voice cracks slightly, "could not be with either of you, but you could be with each other."

She can't tell if it's his sorrow or hers that's making the tears come again, harder this time. "I married him, you know," she says and hugs Enkidu back. She does not add _I love him_ because it's something she can barely admit to herself. Besides, he already knows.

He laughs a little and she can feel it in her bones. "I know. My poor Master."

"He's been driving me crazy for the last seventy years, you only had to put up with him for two. The sex only barely makes up for it-though there was that time he brought me a planet. I guess I win in the patience and endurance categories." Hakuno turns herself in Enkidu's lap, entwines his fingers with hers and looks up at the stars. "I missed you. I could barely remember you, but I missed you. Even with Gilgamesh trying to blot everything else out, my memories of you stayed."

"As did mine."

Hakuno smiles. The feeling inside her isn't joy, not yet, but it's sweet all the same. "We're the legs of the triangle."

Enkidu's hand squeezes hers. "The power behind the throne."

They sit in soft silence, her head on his shoulder, and watch the moon rise, basking in the peace that will be broken once Gilgamesh arrives and takes his place once again as the center of their world.

But for now, the two of them—here together, holding hands under the deep blue sky—are enough.

AN: Well, this wasn't the fic I was planning to finish first, but it just took over and poured out. It's probably better this way because it serves as background for one of the other fics I'm currently working on.

This is based off the theory that Enkidu is Hakuno's nameless Berserker from the CCC Gilgamesh route, which is semi-supported by the game as Enkidu speaks to Hakuno directly during Gil's second Secret Garden, which is strange...unless they already had a previous Master/Servant bond. And it might just be me, but Gilgamesh sounds a little bit reluctant to talk about Hakuno's Berserker at the end of the game...

I can't believe it took me over six hours to write something that's barely 3000 words, but I did take a lot of breaks in between writing, lol.

Next fic will probably be either fluff or porn, let's see which one gets finished first!


End file.
